The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Research and find out what you can about "Cathedral and the Bizarre". Tell me in your own words what it is and why it might be important.

"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is a book written by Eric S. Raymond. It makes a comparison between the traditional pay software development and open source. He has compared the open source model to a bazaar and the traditional software development model to a cathedral.

The cathedral model involves a team of developers, most likely in the same location, with a leadership team and a defined goal.

The bazaar model involves somewhat of an ad hoc team of folks, most times connected only by the internet, modifying a project to fit their individual needs.

It is important because these two methods of development are finding themselves in close competition more and more frequently. As Linux students, it is very important for us to understand the bazaar method, as that is how most Linux is developed. A programmer writes some codes, then posts the code and other developers are free to alter the code as they see fit for their particular needs.